Russian parliament to consider 4-day workweek

The Russian Lower House committee for labor plans to discuss the International Labor Organization’s suggestion to switch to a 4-day working week without cutting workers’ salaries, the head of the body has told the press.

Popular business daily Kommersant on Tuesday quoted MP Andrey
Isayev (United Russia) as saying that this week the State Duma
will hold a roundtable to discuss the suggestion of ILO team
leader Jon Messenger who detailed the benefits of the shorter
work week in an article posted on the group’s web-site.

He claimed that a 4-day workweek would make people healthier and
happier, create more jobs and increase the productivity of a
single worker. Messenger also wrote that shorter working hours
would help fight environmental pollution.

Earlier this year the head of the Virgin Group Richard Branson,
Google CEO Larry Page and other prominent businessmen also voiced
their support of a shorter working week.

Commenting on the proposal, Isayev said it was possible that
Russia would introduce a 36-hour work week instead of the current
40-hour as this would allow to better regulate the process and
prevent employers from forcing staff to work longer hours after
the number of workdays in a week is cut.

However, on Tuesday afternoon Deputy PM Olga Golodets who
oversees labor, healthcare and social issues told the RIA Novosti
news agency that she did not see any possibility of introducing a
4-day work week in Russia.

“At present time we cannot afford this. A 4-day work week is
still a dream for us,” she said, adding that Russian labor
laws were up to date and ranked pretty high in the world in
regard to paid vacations or maternity leave.

In recent months some sectors of the Russian economy, like the
automobile industry have to cut jobs due to sharply falling
demand. However, the national unemployment rate remains low and
fell from 4.9 to 4.8 percent in August.